


Misled and Misread

by Scrawlers



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Gen, Manga canon compliant, takes place after the fire in the Black Crown game shop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 20:14:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17029272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scrawlers/pseuds/Scrawlers
Summary: Sometimes the real treasures are buried beneath layers of thick, thorny underbrush. Mutou Machiko thinks that perhaps she should have known better, that it shouldn’t have taken a fire to burn the foliage away and show the truth, but she didn’t and it did, and now she knows what she has to do.





	Misled and Misread

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a few years ago, but in light of Tumblr being . . . Tumblr, I've decided to archive everything here, just in case.
> 
> Yuugi’s mother doesn’t have a given name in canon, so it was up to me to give her one, since I feel that it would make more sense of her to think of herself by her name rather than “Yuugi’s mom.” Therefore, I named her Machiko, which is written with the following kanji: 真千子. 真 is read as “ma” and means “pure; genuine; true”, 千 is there to be read as “chi” and doesn’t seem to have a special meaning in this case, and 子 is read as “ko” and can mean “child” or “young woman.” So her parents (well, I) named her “genuine/truthful young woman,” more or less.

Machiko hates hospitals—this one in specific.

It isn’t fair of her, she knows, to let her lip curl in disgust at the smell of the antiseptic, to feel bile rising in her throat, her head a little light. It isn’t fair of her to hate the hospital for the time her father-in-law had a heart attack at Kaiba Land, or to blame the hospital staff for the mysterious coma he was in just a short while ago. It isn’t fair of her now to feel pulsing, deep loathing as she rushes through the doors, a stitch screaming in her side, her voice breathless as she asks a nurse to direct her to her son’s room. She barely hears the woman answer as she’s pointed down the hall, and certainly doesn’t hear if the nurse tells her she can’t go see Yuugi just yet. Her father-in-law’s words repeat in a tumble over and over in her head, making too much and yet too little sense all at once:  _Black Crown—game shop—Otogi—fire—Yuugi—!_

Machiko hates this hospital. She’s never liked hospitals, not even when she was a little girl and she spent time recuperating in one after her appendix burst, but if she never has to come back to this place for another member of her family again, it will be too soon.

She takes the stairs to the third floor, for the elevator is too slow for her liking, and before she can demand that the nurses at the station direct her to her son’s room, her father-in-law finds her, and gently guides her by her arm toward the waiting area, which is no more than a series of chairs lining one of the nearby hallways. Machiko glances down the row to see that some of Yuugi’s friends are present, but she barely pays them any mind before she rounds on her father-in-law.

“How is he?” she demands. “Where is Yuugi? Is he all right? Is he—”

“Yuugi will be fine,” her father-in-law tells her, and he smiles that same infuriating smile he always does, the one where she’s never sure if he’s being kind or being teasing. Machiko twists her purse strap in one hand and bites the inside of her cheek, and her father-in-law’s expression becomes a bit more sincere. “His condition is stable. He is still unconscious—” Machiko’s breath catches in her throat. “—but the doctors have treated his burns and are positive he will make a full recovery. They’re monitoring his vitals now.”

Machiko looks down at the long line of hospital rooms. She isn’t sure which one is Yuugi’s. After a moment she feels a hand touch her arm, and when she looks back, she sees her father-in-law looking at her in earnest.

“I promise you, Yuugi will be fine,” he says, and she believes him. However much he might like to tease her—however much he has  _always_ liked to tease her—she knows that he would never joke about Yuugi’s health. “Our boy is very lucky, you know, to have the friends he does. The doctors have said that if Jounouchi-kun didn’t pull him out of that fire when he did, Yuugi might not be in the shape he’s in now.”

“Jounouchi did?” Surprise makes Machiko’s voice a little louder than it might have been otherwise, and she looks over her shoulder to see if the others heard. She hadn’t paid them much attention before, but now that she looks she sees that Anzu, Bakura, Honda, and—yes—Jounouchi are all present. Anzu is standing nearest to Machiko, and she was the only one to look up at the sound of Machiko’s voice. Bakura is staring at his hands, seemingly lost in thought, while Honda is saying something to Jounouchi, who’s staring at the ceiling. Now that she’s paying attention, Machiko sees that Jounouchi has bandages spotted over his face, and what looks to be soot on his skin and clothes, and in his hair.

“Yes,” her father-in-law says, and he sounds amused. She looks back with a frown to see that irritating smile on his face again. That all-knowing, ‘I’ve got your number now, don’t I?’ smile. “It was surprisingly impressive, the way he carried Yuugi out of that fire. Not that I doubted he’d get my grandson to safety, but . . .”

Machiko looks down the hall again. Anzu has taken a seat next to Bakura, who nods absently at whatever she’s saying, while Jounouchi starts coughing in the middle of whatever he’d been trying to say in response to Honda. Machiko is still frowning when she turns back to her father-in-law, but for a different reason this time.

“Please, tell me everything that happened.”

**\- - -**

By the end of her father-in-law’s story, Machiko is pretty sure he wasn’t entirely honest with her. There are things that don’t add up. She doesn’t see why this Otogi Ryuuji boy was insistent on playing a game with Yuugi, or why Otogi’s father was willing to let his shop go up in smoke for the sake of a different game. Even when her father-in-law says it was because of the Millennium Puzzle, Machiko isn’t quite sure she can believe it. The Puzzle is valuable, she’s sure—more than once she has not-so-subtly hinted that Yuugi should sell it for college tuition money—but is it truly valuable enough to kill for? If so, Machiko doesn’t think her son should keep it. It will only lead him down a dangerous way if he does. Better he get rid of it now before it leads him to disaster later.

Then again, she used to think the same thing about his best friend.

As Machiko looks back at the small gathered group at the other end of the hall, she tells herself that she was justified in how she felt before. Any mother would worry when seeing a boy like Jounouchi Katsuya. He was always covered in bruises or cuts, and his spoken Japanese was just as rough as the rest of him. He had no manners, no respect, no  _future_ if his disregard for schoolwork was anything to go by. Machiko would admit that Yuugi had never cared much for school to begin with—he claimed it was boring, but Machiko felt that was no excuse—but Jounouchi was not a good influence on him all the same. The last thing Yuugi needed was more persuasion to not care about his grades.

But that isn’t even the half of it. Even as she watches Anzu scold Jounouchi as he falls into another coughing fit (and even from her position down the hall, Machiko can hear Anzu specifically tell Jounouchi to take it easy), she can still remember what Anzu had told her months ago, back when Yuugi had first befriended Jounouchi. Yuugi and Jounouchi had made themselves comfortable against the game shop’s counter, Yuugi seated on top of it as he showed a new game to Jounouchi, while Machiko and Anzu had stood by the stairs leading up to the living quarters, watching.

“Anzu-chan,” Machiko had asked, and Anzu had looked over to show she heard. “That boy . . . Jounouchi. Is he a good friend to Yuugi?” At that point, Machiko had only met Jounouchi once or twice beforehand, but her own misgivings prompted her to ask the only trustworthy friend Machiko had ever known her son to have. Anzu had been quiet for a moment, watching the two boys by the counter, before she had said:

“I don’t think . . . I don’t know. He wasn’t about a week and a half ago.” Anzu had folded her arms. “He was a bully and a creep is what he was. Well,” Anzu had snorted, “he’s still a creep, at least when it comes to girls. But he never liked Yuugi until a little before last week. I don’t know why he’s acting all buddy-buddy with Yuugi now, but so long as he doesn’t try anything, I guess I’ll let it slide. I don’t want to upset Yuugi, anyway.”

At that point, Jounouchi must have said or done something, for Yuugi had laughed, suddenly enough that he dropped the game pieces he held in his hands. Jounouchi had caught them before they hit the floor, though he fumbled them a little and nearly dropped them himself. For whatever reason, this had just made the boys laugh harder, even as Machiko had frowned.

“Please keep an eye on Yuugi when he’s with that boy,” she had said, and Anzu had smiled at her.

“Of course I will.”

Anzu had kept her promise, Machiko knew. She was a smart, headstrong, warm girl with a bright future and a drive to succeed that Machiko hoped every day would rub off on Yuugi. But instead of the scrutinizing, suspicious gaze Machiko remembers Anzu giving Jounouchi all those months ago, Anzu smiles at him now, her expression warm and soft and a bit hard to read as she reaches out to lightly push his head as he grins. Anzu’s opinion changed, Machiko realizes. Well, she supposes Anzu’s isn’t the only one that has.

Machiko’s father-in-law follows her as she makes her way down the hall, and all of Yuugi’s friends look up as they approach. Bakura, that sweet boy, smiles politely as she nears them, as does Anzu. Honda, a boy who has also always been a bit stand-offish but much better at extending common courtesies than Jounouchi, stands up and nods to her as she nears. Jounouchi remains where he is. He’s in the last seat at the end of the row, slouched in it with his arms folded, and though he stares at her as she approaches him, he doesn’t smile. He looks wary. Machiko has never said much to Jounouchi—any words she said against him, she said to Yuugi in private, and she believes she knows her son well enough to know he wouldn’t share that with his friend—but she thinks that somehow he knew how she felt anyway, that he might have been more intuitive than she gave him credit for.

“Jounouchi-kun,” she says, “may I speak with you for a moment? In private?”

“Uh,” he says. It isn’t the most eloquent response. He looks past her to the others, as if looking for advice, and Machiko glances over to see that Anzu is looking between Machiko and Yuugi’s grandfather, Honda is staring at Jounouchi, and Bakura is staring at her. Machiko’s father-in-law, meanwhile, is grinning like he just pulled his trump card in a gambling match for ten thousand yen. “Sure?”

“Thank you,” Machiko says, and she gestures toward the far end of the hall. “We’ll be right back,” she tells the others, and she lets Jounouchi lead the way to the back corner. He walks with his hands in his pockets, his shirt untucked, but his shoulders are back, his head held high. As uncomfortable as he looks, there is a marked confidence there that Machiko always thought was a sign of an unsavory cocky streak.

It doesn’t seem that way now.

Jounouchi spins on the ball of his foot to face her once they reach the end of the hall. He looks defiant, but guarded. “So, what do you want?” he asks, and he seems to think better of it a second later because he awkwardly adds, “To, uh, talk about?” to the end of it, as if that makes it any more polite. It’s so absurd that Machiko has to choke back a laugh, and she quickly answers him before the scowl that forms on his face at her laughter can lead to him cutting their conversation short.

“My father-in-law told me what happened,” she says. “At the Black Crown game shop—the fire.” Jounouchi gives her a blank stare, as if he doesn’t know where she’s going with this, and so she says, “He told me you were the one who got Yuugi out of the fire before the building collapsed.”

“Oh,” Jounouchi says. He scratches at one of the bandages on his cheek as he looks away—remembering what happened, perhaps. “Yeah. I did.”

Silence falls between them for a second again, and Machiko feels as though he still somehow doesn’t understand what she’s trying to say, so she says, “You saved Yuugi’s life.”

“Yeah,” Jounouchi says. Once again silence falls between them, and they stare at each other for a moment before Jounouchi says, “And?”

“And?” Machiko repeats, aghast. Jounouchi nods, prompting her to go on, and she’s so caught off-guard by his response that she sputters, “And—and you—you  _saved my son’s life_. I want to thank you.”

“Why?” Jounouchi asks, and Machiko isn’t sure if she’s more amazed that any one boy can be this obtuse, or if she’s annoyed for the same reason, but before she can decide he says, “I didn’t do it for you.”

His words are equal parts rude and honest in the same breath, but Machiko sets aside the weird mixture of offense and bemusement she feels at the combination to say, “That may be so, but I’m still grateful. You didn’t have to do what you did, but—”

“What do you mean, I didn’t have to do what I did?” Jounouchi interrupts, and despite the effort Machiko puts into not frowning at his interruption, she can’t stop herself from pursing her lips at his tone.

“You put your life at risk to save Yuugi’s—”

“Yeah?”

“You could have just as easily died in that fire—”

“And?”

“And—and you didn’t have to do that! You didn’t have to stay there to pull him out, you could have left—”

“Are you  _stupid_?” Jounouchi says, and he says it loudly enough that not only does his voice crack a little due to the toll the smoke inhalation took on his throat, but it carries easily down the hall. Everyone, from Yuugi’s friends and Machiko’s father-in-law, to the nurses down at the nurse’s station, look up at the sound of his shout, but Anzu is the only one that snaps back, her voice just as loud as his and her reproach immediate.

“ _Jounouchi_! Watch your mouth!”

“It’s a legitimate question!” he says in response, flailing one arm at Machiko. His arm misses her by a mile, but before Anzu can say what she is plainly gearing up to he says, “She’s sitting here saying that I should’ve just abandoned Yuugi!”

“That is not at all what I’m saying!” Machiko says, and Jounouchi whips back around to face her, his dark eyes bright and wild. The part of Machiko that has spent over a year thinking he was a bad influence on her son feels a little intimidated by the severity of his gaze, but the part of her that knows now he was willing to risk his own life to pull her boy out of a fire knows he is no threat. “I’m saying that you  _could_ have. You could have chosen to walk away, and you—”

“No, I couldn’t have,” Jounouchi says, his tone short and a little harsh. Machiko gives him a level stare.

“Yes, you could have. Your life was in danger, you didn’t have to stay—”

“Yes I did! How could you—” Jounouchi runs a hand through his hair, looking agitated, before he says, “How could you ever think I’d leave Yuugi like that? He could’ve died. He was  _gonna_ die because he didn’t want to leave the Puzzle—”

“Yes, I—I heard,” Machiko says, although her father-in-law hadn’t put it exactly like that, and now she’s wondering again just how much trouble that Puzzle is actually worth. “But you’re misunderstanding me. If you—if you had wanted to save your own life, and leave, that would have been—anyone would have understood, but you didn’t. You made the opposite choice.”

“Well, yeah, but it wasn’t a choice,” Jounouchi says, and Machiko bites back a scream of frustration—that, and the urge to shake him to make him understand. “Yuugi was gonna die if I didn’t get him out, so the only choice was to get him out.”

“Or you could have chosen to save yourself and leave,” Machiko says, and the only way she can think to describe the look Jounouchi gives her is ‘deep disgust.’

“You’re out of your damn mind if you think I’d ever do that. I don’t know what kind of guy you take me for, lady, but I can tell you right now that I’d take on a hundred fires before I ever let one of my friends die, especially Yuugi. There was no other choice. I did what I had to do. That’s all.”

As vehement as Jounouchi’s tone is, and as severe as is expression is to match, there is sincerity in his voice and in his eyes that burns brighter than any frustration or offense he is feeling. Jounouchi really and truly means what he is telling her, in the same way people believe that the sun is hot and gravity is real. It is this that finally allows Machiko’s own frustration to melt out of her shoulders, and she sighs a little as she smiles.

“Yes. I see that now. You’re a good person, Jounouchi-kun,” she says, and the look he gives her is so bewildered that she actually laughs a little before she lightly pokes him in his chest. “Now, come along. You should be resting. You probably inhaled a lot of smoke while you were in that building with Yuugi. I’m sure it must have taken a toll on you.”

“I’m fine,” Jounouchi says, but his body betrays him and his words are broken up by badly restrained coughs. Machiko clicks her tongue at him.

“People who are fine don’t cough like that,” she says, and she puts a hand on his shoulder to steer him back down the hallway. He steps out of her touch, but he keeps pace with her anyway, his expression just as baffled as before and even a little indignant. “You need rest. Did the doctors say you could be up and about?”

“They said I didn’t need to stay, if that’s what you’re asking,” Jounouchi says, his tone defensive. “I just had minor burns, that’s all. No big deal.”

“Your throat is raw, I can hear it in your voice, and you keep coughing, too.” Machiko gestures toward the chair he had been in before once they rejoin the others, but Jounouchi doesn’t sit down. “Take a seat. I’ll see if I can get one of the doctors here to run a more thorough examination of your lungs, just to be safe.”

“I don’t  _need_ that,” Jounouchi says, but although he raises his voice due to annoyance, the strain in it is more apparent than ever. “I’m  _fine_ —”

“You stayed in a burning building until it collapsed, surrounded by flames and inhaling smoke all the while. I’m not about to let them slap a couple of band-aids on you and call it a day,” Machiko says firmly. Out of the corner of her eye she can see her father-in-law beaming like Industrial Illusions just signed an exclusive contract with the Kame Game Shop for future Duel Monsters card sales, and Anzu is barely bothering to hide her own amusement, even as Honda and Bakura look taken aback by the turn of events.

Jounouchi, on the other hand, looks appalled. “You don’t have to ‘let’ them do anything, or stop them from doing anything, or—or  _do_ anything about this, or me, or any of it. All you’ve gotta do is be here for Yuugi whenever he wakes up, okay? He’s the one who needs the help.”

“And I will be here for Yuugi, but in the meanwhile, I’m going to make sure you’re taken care of.”

Jounouchi throws his hands in the air. “You don’t have to take care of me! You’re not  _my_ mom—”

“Well, seeing as how your mother isn’t here right now, someone has to pick up the slack,” Machiko says, and it’s enough to make him shut his mouth with an audible snap, his eyes wide. Machiko points to the chair he had occupied before. “Now sit down and rest while I see to getting you some further examinations. Anzu-chan, would you like to accompany me?”

“Yes ma’am,” Anzu says promptly. Jounouchi, either because the fire took more out of him than he wants to admit and he does need the rest  _or_ because he’s too flummoxed to argue anymore, finally drops back into the chair he had previously occupied. Machiko smiles at him, and then adjusts her purse strap on her shoulder before she starts down toward the nurse’s station. 

In truth, she doesn’t know if she can get more examinations for Jounouchi or not. He isn’t part of her family, and the law typically prevents anyone who isn’t on the family registry from making any decisions with regards to a patient’s medical care or records. Still, she has to try. Neither of Jounouchi’s parents are anywhere in sight despite the fact that their son was involved in a fire, and that . . . Machiko frowns, clutching her purse strap a little more tightly. Now that she thinks on it, she actually doesn’t know anything about Jounouchi’s family. She seems to remember overhearing Yuugi and her father-in-law saying something about Jounouchi having a little sister, but beyond that, she actually doesn’t know much about his parents.

“Anzu-chan?” Machiko asks, and when Anzu looks over at her she says, “Do you have Jounouchi-kun’s phone number? I’d like to call his parents to let them know what happened, and that Jounouchi-kun is all right. We may also need them to get the doctors to agree to more examinations.”

Anzu winces and looks away, looking more uncomfortable than Machiko has ever seen her. “Ah, no,” Anzu says slowly. “Jounouchi’s family doesn’t really . . . have a phone. It’s complicated.”

“Oh.” They stop by the nurse’s station, and as they wait for the nurses to address them, Machiko looks back down the hall. Jounouchi is saying something, but he has to stop to cough into his fist a second later, and for whatever reason this makes her father-in-law laugh. Bakura is smiling as well, but Honda looks a little exasperated at whatever they’re discussing. “So do they know what happened?”

“No. But it’s okay. I mean . . .” Anzu is chewing her lip and staring at the floor when Machiko looks over at her again, and when Anzu sees that Machiko is watching her, she shrugs a little. “I think it’s—Jounouchi would probably rather not tell them. It’s—I can’t say more than that. It’s not really my business to tell. I’m sorry.”

“That’s quite all right. I understand,” Machiko says. Anzu looks relieved, and even smiles a little herself as she looks back down at the gathered group. In truth, Machiko still doesn’t understand the specifics of why Jounouchi’s parents shouldn’t be notified. She can gather that he doesn’t seem to have a good relationship with them, but she can’t imagine why, nor can she imagine that any mother would be pleased to not know that her son had survived a deadly fire. But whatever the case, if Jounouchi’s parents aren’t going to be there for him, then someone else needs to be, and considering how much Machiko’s son cares for Jounouchi—considering how much  _Jounouchi_ cares for  _Machiko’s son_ —Machiko is pretty certain that person is going to have to be her.

“May I help you?” a nurse asks, and Machiko turns back to the nurse’s station with a determined smile.

“I certainly hope so,” she says. “I would like to request further medical care for that boy down the hall.”


End file.
